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Weeding 101: What are Broadleaf weeds?

Weeds are a pest that can wreak havoc on your lawn care attempts if you’re not mindful and careful. The way to combat such treacherous yard invaders is, as with war, to fight and kill. If you’re able to identify the type of weed you’re fighting, you can arm yourself and your lawn maintenance team with the best weed control methods to keep your lawn beautiful and healthy.

Broadleaf weeds are easy to identify because they stick out in your lawn like a sore thumb, glaringly obvious and even bold. The leaves of the weeds look nothing like traditional grass, and some of the weeds even flower and look pretty. But they’re killers that can affect your attempts to keep your grass alive.

Check the leaf shape

If the weeds in your lawn are broadleaf, the way to determine it is to pay attention to the shape of their leaves. The edges of the leaf blade may be serrated, as in toothed like a steak knife, rounded or some other shape.

Check photos of common broadleaf weeds, like yellow rocket or dandelions, to compare your weeds to the usual suspects.

Plant characteristics

Each broadleaf weed’s makeup has distinguishing traits, ranging from the plant’s growth patterns and habits to the way its leaves are arranged. Studying these features with your lawn care experts can help you get the best idea of how to pull the weed or combat its growth.

All the plants are unique, so contact a lawn maintenance expert you find through LawnCare.net to get to the root of any weed problem you might find. Compare pictures and descriptions of the weeds you find in your grass to ones that you find in research on the Internet.

Broadleaf weed life cycle

To kill a broadleaf weed for good, you have to understand a particular weed’s life cycle. If you’re dealing with annual, biennial or perennial weeds, you and your lawn care specialist are going to need a different game plan.

Annual weeds live for one season. They are generally easy to control because they don’t develop complex underground structures, which weeds need to spread and cause new plant growth through creeping roots. Annuals can produce tons of seeds, though, and those can become perpetual pests that do a lot of damage under the right conditions.

Summer and winter annuals are two different types of weeds. Summer ones grow in the spring, mature in the summer, produce seeds, then die by fall. An entire life cycle takes place in a single year.

Winter annuals last 12 months, too, but they overlap two calendar years. They begin in late summer or early fall, remain mostly dormant during the winter, then flower in spring. By late spring and early summer, they’re dead.

Perennial weeds are broadleaf plants that can germinate and spread from seeds, but they also produce a root system that can produce new weeds from your lawn’s surface or underground. The roots can be tubers, corms or bulbs.

Biennial weeds are flowering plants that live for about two years. The first year shows leaves, stems and root growth, followed by a dormant period in winter. In year two, the weeds flower and produce seeds, completing their life cycles.

Weed control

A consultation with a weed control expert from your area can help you best determine how to fight the weed war on your lawn. LawnCare.net can connect you with the best experts in your area to keep your lawn healthy.

The best way to control broadleaf weeds is to keep your lawn so dense and healthy that they have no way of growing at all. Fertilization is also a means to combat broadleaf weed growth, as is frequent mowing, watering and choosing the right grass.

Pulling weeds can work if there are only a few, depending upon the type of weeds you have. Annuals are the easiest to fight. Perennials can occasionally regrow from the root if the system they’ve grown is strong.

Herbicides are also an option.

LawnCare.net has the resources to help you find the right lawn care treatment in your area, even allowing you to search for an expert based upon their specialty.

Don’t let the weeds win.

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